Former Joe Biden Adviser: 'Tight' Labor Markets Best Way to Improve Wages

Jared Bernstein, the former top economic adviser for Vice President Joe Biden, conceded that “tight” labor markets are the best way to raise the wages of working class Americans as the Obama administration sets its sights on loosening them with comprehensive immigration reform legislation.

“The main way middle- and lower-income families get a larger slice of the pie is through tight labor markets, which provide them with a bit more of the bargaining power they’ve acutely lacked in recent years,” he wrote in a Politico magazine article last week. “The job market may well improve this year, but it’s highly unlikely that it will be ‘tight’ by year’s end.”

President Barack Obama, though, is ramping up efforts to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill – with more high-tech visas and a pathway to citizenship for all of the country’s illegal immigrants – even though the Congressional Budget Office determined such a bill would lower the wages of working class Americans.